2003 Media Follies!

The year 2004 will be a particularly critical one in the modern history of our nation and our world. The chain of events set in motion by the U.S. invasion of Iraq is likely to take a definitive turn; beyond that, the American public will be asked to pass judgment on four years' performance of one of the most radical regimes in our country's history. Understanding what's actually happening has never been more important -- and spinmeisters' efforts to obscure what's actually happening will be stronger and more technologically savvy than ever. It's time to get smart.

To that end, enter 2004 with our annual list of the past year's most overhyped and underreported -- and misreported -- stories. Remember, they told us they'd lie to us. They were telling the truth.

Most Overrated Stories of the Year:

Saving Jessica Lynch. On the basis of its subsequent media saturation -- books and TV instamovie included -- the bogus story of Jessica Lynch's "rescue" narrowly outpolls the toppling of Saddam's statue as the most sickening episode of government lying for political gain in recent memory. (The "official" story of Saddam's capture may yet prove to join this elite company.)

Both the statue and Lynch stories were easily and quickly discredited in foreign media -- and, eventually, in U.S. media as well -- but remain iconic markers of the "heroic" Iraq invasion in the minds of many Americans. In the case of the statue, what was presented as the joyous, spontaneous post-victory celebration of a huge Baghdad crowd was quickly revealed by non-network witnesses and wide-angle lenses to be a group of at most 150 Iraqis -- probably paid by the Americans -- who with the help of U.S. troops on site pulled down a statue of Saddam for waiting TV cameras in an otherwise nearly empty plaza.

The Lynch episode was even more cynical, particularly for its crass exploitation of a young soldier who had gone through the undeniably harrowing ordeal of being a POW. But she was captured after being injured in a vehicular accident -- not, as the first Pentagon claimed, after a heroic firefight. And the videotape of her "rescue" from an unguarded hospital that she could freely walk away from involved the filming of an elaborate Hollywood-style commando raid against an off-camera foe that turned out to be completely fictitious. Both episodes were important reminders that sometimes the camera does lie -- depending on who's holding it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger runs for governor. Never before has a political neophyte gained high political office by waging a campaign through appearances on E! and Jay Leno. Let's hope it never happens again. (But it probably will.)

Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant. Which is worse -- a sports superstar, on trial for felony rape, who gets huge ovations in arenas across the country because of the charges against him, or the dare-you-not-to-look spectacle of a trial examining the alleged perversions of an over-the-hill music superstar who is now barely recognizably human, let alone black or male?

The economic recovery. Also on the 2002 list. This year it moved from the realm of projecting a fictitious recovery from a highly selective (and dubious) reading of economic tea leaves, to projecting a fictitious permanent recovery from a highly selective (and dubious) reading of the tea leaves of what is at best a temporary respite from misery. And what the hell is the point of a "jobless recovery," anyway?

Most Important Underreported Stories of the Year

The Bush tax cuts have flopped. The flip side of the "recovery" stories. This has also been on the list the last two years. But it's worth a return engagement because most of the administration's economic claims -- and assumptions for future planning -- are grossly fictional. Never has an administration been so greedy for its own economic interests, or lied so much about it. We'll be stuck with the bill for decades.